At some point about 10 years ago, my life became on glaring display for all to see. There is no moment I'm not conscious of the MS, I'm not aware of its terrible effects on me, that I don't feel like a very raw nerve. My life is an open book, and my doctors and specialists all know only too well about it. I cannot hide, I cannot turn my gaze, I cannot run. This is the cold, hard fact of what my life gave me.
--Facebook status update
_____
The most authentic thing about us is our capacity to create, to overcome, to endure, to transform, to love, and to be greater than our suffering.
--Ben Okri
*Lord's-Jester*
One thing I'd like to mention is this: I've, as a certified Professional Perfumer, been invited to participate in The Mystery Of Musk project. I'm pretty sure no one has ideas about what other's are coming up with; we don't actually have much to go on. We've got that word "mystery" and that's about it. So I made a complete perfume, Dionysus (17 notes altogether), as I have a sense that others don't quite know what to do with my perfume--is this scent impossibly intense or is that just me? The perfume is riffs on ambergris and Africa stone in the base, along with five others--including cognac, as we're talking about the god of wine. In the heart I added jonquil as I think it has an intimate aroma. Now we get to lining up recipients of these samples and one final winner.
I want to mention that this title I've acquired, Professional Perfumer, is the furthest I can travel along natural-perfume lines. There is no title "master perfumer," and if anyone tries to tell you different, tell them they're full of crap. In the old days, people got away with calling themselves Master Perfumer, but that's just a big gray area; you can call yourselves "master" anything. My experience is that people who would call themselves "masters" have a whole lot to make up for. This is a lifelong endeavor; there is no point at which one says, "Okay, I've learned enough." No--constant innovation and forever making brand new batches of perfume. Barreling down the freeway of forever-new ideas.
As I've gotten used to my perfumes, I find layering them, or at least two different places on my body, is best. There are certain combinations I like: Demeter on the hands and Heracles on the face, Ares on the bottom and Ares/Zephyr on top, Zephyr on bottom and Selene on top, etc. I haven't yet found two compliments, though I think Demeter and Zephyr would be the ticket. Each one by itself is plenty redolent enough, but I like to add to the mystery. It goes back to my days living with a host of fragrances. It horrifies me to think back and remember those were all _synthetic_! It's been a long strange trip, all toward getting the title of Professional Perfumer. Worlds I've traveled to get where I am. I wouldn't change a speck of it.
*Taiwan*
The first person who taught me the importance of the tea ceremony was my first (and only) girlfriend. She casually took me to a place in northern Taipei; little did she know, she was busy convincing to spend a life with fine tea. Now, to be clear, there is nothing about the tea ceremony that's similar to western tea-making. This is done on a tea tray with a hole in the middle.
1. You warm the cups with hot water.
2. Then you add tea to the teapot. "Half full" is what I always heard.
3. You add a small amount of water to the tea. You then take that water and heat the pots and cups. (There is a theme of keeping the cups warm.)
4. Then you add the full amount of water. Traditionally, there is a cup just for smelling, then you dump the tea into the cup.
5. Repeat as many times as you see fit.
Good oolong (oolong is used for the above ceremony) can be steeped at least eight times before giving up the ghost. The stuff we get around here can only be steeped about two or three times. I get my tea now from Holy Mountain Trading Company. I am very pleased to have this addiction.
*Quotations*
The most authentic thing about us is our capacity to create, to overcome, to endure, to transform, to love, and to be greater than our suffering.
--Ben Okri
Poetry is based in a craving to get through the curtains of things as they appear, to things as they are, and then into the larger, wilder space of things as they are becoming. This ambition involves a paradox: an instinctive belief in the senses as exquisite tools for this investigation and, at the same time, a suspicion about their crudeness.
--May Swenson
When power leads man toward arrogance, poetry reminds him of his limitations.
--John F Kennedy
You can take no credit for beauty at sixteen. But if you are beautiful at sixty, it will be your soul's own doing.
--Marie Stopes
What was whispered to the rose to break it open last night was whispered to my heart.
--Rumi
That's the thing with magic. You've got to know it's still here, all around us, or it just stays invisible for you.
--Charles de Lint
All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another.
--Anatole France
Change is the constant, the signal for rebirth, the egg of the phoenix.
--Christina Baldwin
Right now we're stading at a massive point of rebirth.
--Lars Ulrich
No witchcraft, no enemy action had silenced the rebirth of new life in this stricken world. The people had done it themselves.
--Rachel Carson
*Music*
Liberation 06.10
1. Freeway, Aimee Mann
2. To a Hammer, Erin McKeown
3. Long Way Home/Rain on the Court, Tina Dico
4. Long Shadows, Josh Ritter
5. Gunnin', Sean Hayes
6. Corrido por Buddy, Jolie Holland
7. Light of the Morning, Band of Skulls
8. Windowsill, Arcade Fire
9. Great Beyond, Aimee Mann
10. Birds and Bees, Ben Lee
11. Cold Enough to Cross, Joe Henry
12. (Put the Fun Back in) the Funeral, Erin McKeown
13. The Curse, Josh Ritter
14. When We Fall In, Sean Hayes
15. Ballantines (with Sean Hayes), Aimee Mann
16. All I See, Tina Dico
17. Mexico City, Jolie Holland
18. Truce, Joe Henry
19. Orbital, Josh Ritter
20. Seamless, Erin McKeown
21. Powerful Stuff, Sean Hayes
22. Lullaby, Aimee Mann
Peace love and ATOM jazz
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